BEARS 5, SOUND TIGERS 0

Despite being even in shots with both teams having 32, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers fell to the Hershey Bears 5-0 on Sunday night at Webster Bank Arena.

Goaltender Stephon Williams stopped 27 shots while Hershey went 1-for-3 on the power play. Kevin Czuczman had four shots on goal.

The majority of the first frame was uneventful with just two penalties. The action started when Hershey struck first on a 2-on-1 opportunity. Williams was already on the ground from a Nathan Walker pass but Garrett Mitchell snuck behind him and managed to score to put the away team up by a goal at 18:33.

At 3:54 into the second, Williams stopped consecutive shots on goal and kept rolling with huge saves. The final Hershey shot came extremely close with Williams making a sprawling save with the puck in between his legs just in front of the goal line to keep his team within one.

A little less than halfway through the second period James Wright drove a cross ice pass to Joe Whitney who sent a wrister to goaltender Dan Ellis but he came up huge with a save outside of the net.

Justin Vaive continued the momentum a minute later with an extremely close call but Ellis again made another tremendous play.

Josh Holmstrom found himself a spot in the penalty box for interference at 10:12 of the second to put the Sound Tigers on their second penalty kill of the night. The Bears kept themselves in the zone for over a minute and a half and it proved to be successful. Chris Bourque tricked the defense and found an opening and beat Williams glove side to light the lamp to bring Hershey up 2-0.

Hershey continued with their scoring, when Dustin Gazley’s shot hit traffic, Sean Collins found a wide-open net to score another goal at 14:11 of the second.

The Bears scored twice in the third period with the game already in hand. Bourque struck again just 1:18 into the final frame for his second of the game. He scored when he beat Williams on a breakaway. Later in the period, Gazley found himself on a breakaway and Williams thought that he could beat him. Williams skated out to take the puck away but Gazley skated around him and put it into an empty net.

No further scoring occurred for either team and 5-0 was the final score.

The Sound Tigers look to bounce back next Friday when they take on the Providence Bruins at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.